30. Again rain fell in abundance, and we remained in the boats waiting for the breaking-up of the ice. It was scarcely possible to go any distance from them, for the ice of the surrounding floes was so thin, that we could not venture to walk on them lest we should break through. Fissures abounded, but no seals were to be seen in them. This forced abode in our boats was almost unendurable. We could not always sleep, and only a frugal few had any tobacco left to smoke. Some of our party had for a long time smoked dry tea-leaves in the form of cigarettes, or had filled their pipes with match paper. All the tinder had been long used up in this way, and a dreadful trial it had been to the olfactory nerves of those who would not so indulge. Haller went further still, and smoked paper in the close covered boat! besides many leaves of his note-books, he still had a quantity of packing-paper, but, in the interest of the community, I was compelled to interfere against its use in this fashion. He found some compensation in another occupation, which had the merit at least of being inoffensive to others—mixing together his rations of tea, salt, and bread-dust, he converted the mixture into a soup. These days seemed as though they would never end; there was a continual taking off and pulling on of boots; some sat in the boats gaping about vacantly in all directions; some standing on the ice gaped as vacantly; all mental activity was concentrated in two wishes, that the ice would break up, and that the time for the next meal would come round. No one had any private reserve of provision. The days were gone when a stocking filled with bread might be seen hanging from the belt of one, or the ribs of a bear in the hand of another. And yet amidst all the hunger, which we felt the more acutely from our abundant leisure, some among us had actually become as plump as quails, and if we had been found dead on the floes, it would have been thought, that we had died in consequence of over-eating, so stout had most of us become. But dreadful was the solemn lapse of time. August was well advanced; the knowledge that we had provisions for only one month more, and the shortness of the season for action that still remained, failed not to impress upon us all that the crisis of our fate was at hand. For three weeks past the formation of young ice had begun, both on the ice and on the sweet-water lakes on the floes. Even during these summer months, the temperature in the night had frequently fallen two or three degrees below freezing-point, and the cold now began to join the fragments of old floes into formidable obstacles. The caprice of a wind might again carry us off towards the north, as it had done two years ago, but carry us too, to certain inevitable destruction. On the 9th of August we found our latitude 78° 9′—a higher degree than we had expected. But what would a lower degree have availed us, had not the open sea been near us—the open sea, on which hung all our hopes, ever since the word had been uttered? The joy of that day’s discovery was fed and sustained by the low murmur of a distant surf, which either imagination or our senses, rendered acute by the presence of danger, continued to hear in the south.
31. Thus passed the days from the 10th to the 13th of August, the calking of our boats forming our only distraction. Eagerly and earnestly we gazed on the water-sky in the south and on every change in the ice.[56] On the 10th our latitude was 78° 6′ and our longitude 60° 45′, E.; on the 13th our latitude was 77° 58′, and our longitude 61° 10′ E. On the 12th the ice had become somewhat looser. We advanced a mile to the south, but were then again beset. It rained during the whole day, and in the night, the temperature fell several degrees below freezing-point. Ice an inch thick was formed on the 13th over the surface of the fresh-water lakes, and when we went, either to drink from them or to perform our toilet, we had to break through a coating of ice. All these were so many signs that Summer had bid us adieu and that the short Autumn of the north had begun. This day, too, we had the first impression of the returning cold.
CALKING THE BOATS.
32. At last during the night of the 14th, the ice somewhat opened and we could go on our way. Just before we started, in the early morning, a seal was shot which the dogs had discovered and attacked: it was the eighteenth and last we shot since we abandoned the ship. With much labour in shoving we forced a passage through a long succession of “leads” and halted for a short rest at midnight in front of a larger “ice-hole,” to refresh our strength with some pieces of blubber, seasoned with alcohol and thaw-water. Drift ice lay all round us, and we had the presentiment, that the hour at last had come which was to set us free from the ice. All things rise in our estimation, when we are about to bid them farewell, and it was with some pain that we felt all at once, that in a few minutes we should bid adieu to the realm of ice, which lay behind us in all its magical grandeur. We now moved on under sail: the “ice-holes” increased in size, the ice diminished, and the swell of the ocean was perceptibly greater. Our latitude at noon next day was 77° 49′. A large “ice-hole” opened before us, and with a sea running high, the boats, making a good deal of water, we sailed into it—it was the last ice-hole. The last line of ice lay ahead of us, and beyond it the boundless open sea!
FAREWELL TO THE FROZEN OCEAN.
33. About six o’clock in the evening we had reached the extreme edge of the ice-barrier, and once more, but for the last time, drew our boats on a floe. Again our ears heard the noise of the waves—the voice of life to us. Again we saw the white foam of the surge, and felt, as if we had awoke from a death-like slumber of years to a new existence. But if our joy at deliverance was great, not less great was our astonishment to have reached the ice-barrier in the high latitude of 77° 40′, and with it the hope of final escape. We went to rest for some hours, but were roused by the watch about two o’clock in the morning. The east wind had gathered some heavy masses of ice around us, which rose and fell with the swell of the ocean, and we were already several hundred yards from the water’s edge. Any delay in escaping as quickly as possible would require the labours of many days to set us free again. After much shoving with the poles, and lading and unlading, we again got beyond the line of ice. The frozen ocean lay behind us, and on our last floe we made preparations for our voyage on the open sea.